


all i need

by modernpatroclus



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, and the neil/matt brotp is strong, in which matt is a protective mama bear, post tkm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-26 21:16:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6256228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modernpatroclus/pseuds/modernpatroclus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few weeks into Neil’s lonely senior year brings him a surprise visitor who’s determined to see him happy again. So who does he call? The least smiley person he knows, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all i need

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this last night at four am because I could no longer deny how much these books have taken over my life. (And caN we just talk for a minUTE ABOUT HOW FRACKING CUTE NEIL AND MATT'S BROTP IS)  
> The title is from "for him." by Troye Sivan.  
> I hope you enjoy!

Matt is a few weeks into his second pro season when he finally has some time off. Because the break happens to fall when he’s in South Carolina, he decides to spend the weekend on a surprise visit to Neil at Palmetto State.

He knows Neil’s had a pretty rough time lately, having to be without Andrew or any of the other members of his original Fox team for the first time. When Matt actually sees Neil, though, he can tell just how much it’s affecting him.  For a kid who had spent his entire first 18 years of life forcibly friendless and taught to trust no one, he’s hardly to blame for coping so poorly.

It’s Andrew’s first pro season, and he’s been traveling nonstop. They haven’t seen each other in a month, Neil had told him when he’d asked how things were going.

So when Neil ends up taking a 40 minute shower after they play a one-on-one scrimmage, Matt does something about his friend’s depressed state.

He calls Andrew.

Andrew, for his part, picks up merely out of curiosity. “Listen, mon – Andrew,” Matt corrects himself. Old habits and all that (and Matt knows a lot about those).

“I’m here with Neil, and he’s . . . not good,” he explains lamely, not quite sure how to describe Neil’s demeanor. He’d tried to hide it, but Matt knew his friend better. They were roommates, after all. And after Baltimore, when Neil decided to be open with Matt, the latter had begun to distinguish the times when Neil was reverting and hiding something.

“I know you’re traveling, so I get if you can’t make it down here right away. But try to do it soon, alright? The guy’s a mess; it’s pitiful. Maybe give him a call,” he’d started to suggest, but Andrew had hung up without a word.

Matt tried to tamp down his annoyance and reassure himself that Andrew, no matter his attitude toward the rest of the world, truly cared about Neil in a way no one predicted. He would come through.

* * *

Matt was right.

No sooner had they gotten back from the dinner Matt had dragged Neil to, than had he gotten up to answer short, sharp raps on Neil’s door. He hadn’t heard from Andrew again, but Matt knew it was him.

Matt opens the door to all 5'0 apathy that is Andrew Minyard, who promptly pushes past him into the room. Neil doesn’t look up, instead continuing to play the video game he had paused for Matt to get the door.

But Andrew is anything but patient. He sits behind Neil and presses his fingers into the back of Neil’s neck. Matt watches in wonder as the boy who had been prepared to run in his sleep when they first met doesn’t even flinch at the sudden, but clearly familiar, touch.

Matt grins to himself and silently excuses himself to the bedroom, neither of the other guys giving him a second glance.

“Hello,” Andrew says when they’re alone.

“Andrew,” Neil breathes, turning in his bean bag, his tone already lighter. “I thought –” he starts, but Andrew hushes him with fingers pressed to Neil’s lips.

“Clearly, your thoughts were incorrect.”

“But –” Neil tries again, but to no avail. Andrew simply presses his fingers harder to get Neil to be quiet. It works.

“Stop. Whatever is bothering you, stop. You are fine now. I’m here,” Andrew says. Like it’s that simple. Of course, it is.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Andrew warns. But the words seem to lose some of their bite each time he says them. He surrenders more of himself to Neil with every “I hate you.”

Neil can’t help it; he feels a smile creep onto his face. The face he’d been warring with especially lately, his loneliness without Andrew and the cousins coupled with the stress of having to captain new headstrong Foxes, mixed with his myriad of repressed mental health problems.

He’d been thinking about his father a lot this past month. And not getting to see Andrew, in part due to his own vigorous practice schedule, and due to Andrew’s sporadic hopping around different cities each night.

It was all beginning to weigh on him.

He had thought he was doing a pretty decent job of hiding it, if not from Wymack – who still upheld his “I don’t need to know” stance – at least from the other Foxes. He and Robin were just starting to get close, so if she noticed anything off, she didn’t mention it yet.

Neil doesn’t drop his smile, but all he says is, “Thank you.”

Andrew just stares at him, but Neil knows how much lies beneath his apathetic veneer.

Already feeling a good quarter of his burden lifted, Neil reaches to pull Andrew into the bean bag with him. He moves slowly, giving Andrew all the time in the world to pull away. He doesn’t.

But after four years and countless tests of trust, they’ve reached the point where Andrew has accepted Neil’s resolute “It’s yes until it’s no,” and Andrew climbs in next to Neil without hesitation.

Matt’s in the other room, and they don’t have the privacy they’d had this past summer in Andrew’s – really, their – new apartment, but it’s more than they’ve had since the season started, and neither of them have ever been one for grand romanticism. This is enough.

Andrew pulls Neil to him by the front of his shirt, and the overdue kiss is all clashing teeth and frantic hands in hair. When Neil pulls back for air, he presses his forehead to Andrew’s for the unyielding support he knows will be there.

They’re both breathless and their lips are swollen, and it is the perfect mindless distraction to the chaotic spiral his mind has been headed towards lately. Andrew brings the perfect balance of give-and-take, always somehow knowing when Neil needs one over the other.

And it may only be for a night (Neil hasn’t gotten around to asking yet, being too busy – and content –occupying their mouths with other things) or for the weekend, but Neil will worry about that later.

“You think too loud,” Andrew comments, pulling Neil out of his head again.

“Sorry,” he says, a soft smile replacing the worried frown on his face, and he can feel Andrew’s fist clench into his shirt.

“Shut up.”

“You should make me,” Neil challenges, tone teasing.

As Andrew rises to his bait, Neil makes a mental note to thank Matt later.


End file.
